Safety, Inclusion, and Intervention: An Update

Over the last month and a half, the 107ist Board of Directors has been working diligently to address the issue of sexual harassment/assault within our ranks, and has been taking the issue very seriously as it has dominated our deliberations over this time. We regret that over this same time, other credible incidents have occurred and have been brought to our attention. While we have now since taken direct action, the board understands and shares the frustrations of those affected. To aid in our deliberative processes moving forward, we have updated our Code of Conduct to more specifically address these types of incidents.

In addition, we are creating a special subcommittee to address issues of sexual harassment and assault as they arise and, given the sensitive nature of such incidents, are working on anonymizing reports if someone so wishes. This will allow us to track incidents, help us to identify escalating behavior, and inform a response that is both judicious and timely.

One thing that we have learned through this process is that we all need to be doing a better job identifying problem behaviors and advocating for those who have been victimized. As a result, we have vetted and selected a professional bystander intervention program focusing on sexual harassment from a group who understands who we are, what we do, and what we stand for. We will be holding the first of these trainings later in July and August for the board, game day ops, and in-house security. Any available slots outside this group will be open to members at large. Our goal is to have these early trainings help the trainers understand the uniqueness of our community as we open them up to broader membership moving forward. It’s worth noting that we are still working on hosting bystander intervention trainings more specifically geared toward incidences of hate, but we found that the subject matter was divergent enough that they needed to be two separate trainings.

We look forward to collaborating with all our membership as we collectively work toward building a more welcoming environment free of the predatory behavior that has made our ranks an unsafe place for some of our members. These behaviors are not limited to our shared spaces; they expand across our society. We feel we have the capacity as an organization to move in the direction of the leading edge, and each of you is an important part of that capacity.